


Built to last

by chimosa



Category: Hannibal (TV), Red Dragon - Thomas Harris
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Hand Jobs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 21:33:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chimosa/pseuds/chimosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Set post- Red Dragon, uses plot points from Season 1 of Hannibal</i>
</p><p>"Why did you give Dolarhyde my address?"  And he was wrong to drink so much before he came here.  Graham thought it would smooth out the pain clawing at his heart, but it only makes him more susceptible to the grief that roughens his words when he speaks.</p><p>"Why did you stay away from me for so long?"  Lecter counters, his head tilts slightly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Built to last

**Author's Note:**

> Here's yet another writer's attempt to marry the book Red Dragon with the show we all love so well. As usual, feedback is appreciated.

"I build forts," Graham tells Dr. Hannibal Lecter the first time they meet in Jack Crawford's office; the faces of missing, suspected dead, girls lining a wall. 

This time, among the sand and sticky air of the Florida Keys, Graham builds to last. 

He takes care to sever all the ties to his former life. It was hard to walk away from Alana Bloom, but it had to be done, and now he reads in the Christmas cards she sends that she is in Chicago and happy. He never writes back, but then again he doesn't imagine she expects him to. When Graham tells Crawford to lose his number, he means it. 

This fortress has no room for the dead. 

This stronghold only has room for Molly and Willy, and the sound of waves as they break steps from his front porch. This time the walls he builds to protect his fractured mind are fortified by isolation, and it's months into their relationship before Molly finally talks him into even a Miami Herald subscription, that's how little he wants to hear about the ugliness the human soul is capable of. He fishes for grouper and grills burgers in an ironic apron that makes Molly crack up every time he wears it, and slowly he forgets he's a broken man incapable of love. 

And when he remembers? Well, that's what the gin is for.

This fort takes years to build but as days become weeks and the weeks flutter by like the anhingas that swoop overhead in the tropical sun, he starts to believe in the power of his own craftsmanship. Soon time is separated into hurricane seasons and tourist seasons, and Graham dares to be happy.

That's, of course, when it all goes to shit.

Graham knew he had built his new life on literal sand, he didn't realize the foundation was erected on figurative sand as well. He watches with his one good eye as Molly leaves his hospital bed and even his Demerol-addled mind knows its the last he's going to see of her. Her sense of honor will want to wait until Graham is at least up on his own two feet before dealing him the crushing blow of her desertion, no doubt face to face, but that's why God made phones. He calls her and tells her to follow Willy to Oregon and by the time Graham is released, the house they shared echoes with the spaces left from all she packed. His first night alone he wanders around his own home like it's a crime scene; investigating what's been taken, what's been left, and letting his re-awakened mind conjure Molly's last steps in this place. It's a comfort, this ghost of Molly packing, until it's not.

When the pain of his severed face becomes unbearable, well, that's what the scotch is for.

Now that he's turned it on, he can't turn off the fevered imaginings of his mind. It's been so long since he's had to live with a grimy layer of possibity over the everyday, like a cloudy film that he can't scrub off no matter how much he tries to blink it away. As it turns out, the pendulum only swings one way. He made it stop once before, but it's harder this time, and he looses a month as his face heals and his brain catches fire. It's not encephalitis, but it might as well be. The sunlight in his living room moves from the left of his armchair to the right, but he's too busy watching and rewatching Molly pack and leave, pack and leave to care. He fills and refills his tumbler, the amber liquor swaddles his self control.

It's a miracle he doesn't crash the car, driving up US1 to the mainland, considering this stretch of road is one of the most deadly in the country. There's a sign that warns him that 27 people have already died this year and he has to hit the gas to outpace the swinging pendulum that wants nothing more than to reanimate their ghosts and retrace their steps. 

Graham has to buy himself a finger of scotch once he gets to Miami International Airport, and then another. The flight attendant eyes him narrowly as he boards his direct flight, but if she suspects he is technically too drunk to fly she keeps it to herself. 

At 30,000 feet he orders a coke. At the airport bar in Baltimore, he orders a gin. Graham can convince himself this trip is a good idea, as long as he stays one step ahead of sobriety. He tells the cabbie where to take him, though he has to repeat himself four times and whether that's due to the heaviness of his tongue or the driver's surprise, it's hard to say.

Dr. Frederick Chilton is surprised to see Will Graham, but Dr. Hannibal Lecter is not.

"I wrote to you," Lecter offers from where he reclines on his cot, his eyes closed and his fingers interlaced across his chest.

"I didn't get it," Graham says, staying close to the shadows. He's strangely reluctant to let Lecter see Francis Dolarhyde's handiwork. 

"Pity. After all the trouble I went through to get it sent out, too. You might as well come closer; you'll show me your face eventually."

Will does and Lecter's eyes are impassive as he surveys the damage.

"You used to be faster," he says at last. "When I sent Tobias Budge after you, he didn't leave a mark."

"Tobias Budge?" 

The name is familiar, but there is such a large index of bodies that span the space between the two of them, it's hard for Graham to place it. 

"The cello enthusiast," Lecter says absently, stepping as close to Graham as his cage would allow. His hand beckons at Graham, reaching out from between a pair of iron bars. "Come here, Will. Let me see you."

Graham maintains his distance. 

"Why did you give Dolarhyde my address?" And he was wrong to drink so much before he came here. Graham thought it would smooth out the pain clawing at his heart, but it only makes him more susceptible to the grief that roughens his words when he speaks.

"Why did you stay away from me for so long?" Lecter counters, his head tilts slightly.

"I thought I could change," Graham hears himself say, the words spilling honestly across his lips. No self control.

Lecter accepts the truth of his answer with a small nod. "I wanted to show you that you couldn't."

Graham bows his head and fights for composure. Why did he drink so damn fucking much?

"Come here, Will," Lecter says again and this time he obeys. 

His scarred cheek is carefully cupped, and it's a relief to close his eyes and accept the gentle touch. 

"My wife left me," Graham whispers, turning his lips so that they brush Lecter's soft palm as he speaks.

"You knew she would eventually. It was wrong of you to marry her," he gently chides. "You could have gotten her killed."

Graham accepts the words and the touch that smoothes the lines of his ravaged face, lingering around the eye he nearly lost. 

"I can't stop watching her leave."

"You come to me to help turn that extraordinary mind of yours on, now you want my help turning it off," Lecter says, voice amused and fingers restless, tracing the shell of Graham's ear, the noble ridge of his nose. "What will you give me in return?"

"What do you want?"

Lecter's index finger taps the corner of Graham's mouth. 

"Chilton said you chewed out the tongue of a nurse not too long ago. How do I know you won't try the same thing with me?"

This close Graham can see the fine crow's feet at Lecter's eyes crinkle with real amusement. 

"There are better ways to savor your tongue, I think."

This is how lion tamers must feel, when they put their heads into the mouth of a beast. Graham leans in, incrementally as his heart kicks up to double time. There is a crackle in the air, the taste of violence barely surpressed, the scent of a predator only this side of domesticated, as Lecter's lips meet his. They are warm, as warm as he remembers them, and Graham's eyes flutter closed as a clever tongue parts his lips and lays claim to its prey. 

Graham can see a pendulum swing, can follow Lecter's backwards shuffle out of this cell, his legs hobbled together by iron shackles. He watches Lecter's trial as the verdict is unread aloud, just as he watches his own blood unseep from between his fingers back into his abdomen where it belongs. The Wound Man drawing is un-discovered and weeks roll backward until Graham is in a familiar bed, the drape of Lecter's body pinning him down as he moves his hips sweetly, painfully, between Graham's thighs. 

The mouth that finds his is a connoisseur's; it tastes his longing, his need, and all the things Graham still can't quite bring himself to say. The hands that hold his wrists together are wonderfully strong and it's such a relief to surrender, to let himself be caught immobile and split open, exposed with every new thrust, that he squeezes his eyes shut. His cock is leaking, thrumming furiously, ready to come, and he doesn't recognize his own voice as it grunts, begs for relief. 

"Please, touch me," he says and there's a hand ( _slipping below the band of his jeans, the weight he's lost makes for easier access_ ) touching him and it's tight, so tight, as it squeezes, jerks him off as he cries ( _"Shhh, not so loud. That's it, give yourself to me"_ ) and with a gulp of air that's as heady as a morning's first inhale after a snowfall he can feel his balls clench and Graham is coming ( _"You are exquisite."_ ) and coming and coming.

Small kisses are pressed to his cheek, traces his disfigurement, and Graham slowly find his way back to Lecter's cell at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. The hand that is on his softening cock gives one fond, final squeeze before loosening and drawing away.

Graham's boxers stick uncomfortably to his groin and he shifts, disgusted. He doesn't know which betrayal is worse: the betrayal of his body or his brain.

"There," says Lecter's smug voice. "You won't be thinking about your wife anymore."

"You bastard," Graham says, stepping back. It's true, though; now his overwrought mind is filled with memories of the man before him.

Lecter chuckles, brings his fingers up so that he can lick away the last shining traces of sex.

"I'll see you next week," Lecter says, dismissing him, and Graham hates knowing that he will.


End file.
